Rock Hudson shortly before his death. [Source: Southern Voice]Actor Rock Hudson, a close friend of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, dies of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The virus was identified in 1983, but until now has been ignored by the Reagan administration. With the death of Hudson, Reagan will call AIDS research a “top priority” for his administration. However, Reagan immediately proposes spending cuts that would slash funding for such research. [PBS, 2000]

Dr. Jonathan Fishbein. [Source: unknown]Government whistleblower Dr. Jonathan Fishbein, in testimony before a panel at the Institute of Medicine, says that federal officials involved in a US-funded study in Uganda endangered the lives of hundreds of patients testing an AIDS drug because of careless and negligent research practices. Fishbein says officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) ignored problems with the way the study was being conducted on the AIDS drug, nevirapine, which is used to protect babies in Africa from HIV infection during birth. The consequences of their failure had “grave and sometimes fatal implications for the lives of real patients,” Fishbein tells the panel. Fishbein does not allege that the drug is dangerous or ineffective. Instead, he discusses problems with the researchers involved, citing shoddy data collection, record-keeping and quality control issues. Because of those concerns, he says, the results of the study cannot be trusted. “We can ill afford to entrust the lives of people to invalid data,” he says. NIH has acknowledged that the Uganda research failed to meet required US standards. But it maintains that hundreds of thousands of African babies have been saved by using single doses of the drug to block the AIDS virus and that it can be done safely with those single doses. Nevirapine is an antiretroviral drug used since the 1990s to treat adult AIDS patients and is known to have potentially lethal side effects like liver damage when taken in multiple doses over time. Concerns have been raised over the possibility that the drug may cause long-term resistance in patients to further AIDS treatments. It is marketed in the United States as Viramune. Fishbein says that top officials at NIH became “so heavily invested in the trial’s outcome” that they could not be objective. “The old adage ‘garbage in, garbage out’ is apt,” he says. In 2003, Fishbein helped halt the study for 15 months after auditors, medical experts, and others disclosed problems with the project. But the concerns were dismissed by NIH officials, and the study began again. Documents show NIH knew of problems with the study in early 2002, but did not tell the White House before President Bush launched a $500 million plan that summer to use nevirapine throughout Africa. NIH is attempting to fire Fishbein for what it calls poor performance issues; Fishbein says the firing is retaliation for his speaking out. [Associated Press, 1/4/2005]

Dave Schultheis. [Source: NowPublic (.com)]Colorado Republican State Senator Dave Schultheis votes against a bill requiring pregnant women to be tested for HIV so their unborn children can be treated to prevent the virus’s transfer. Instead, Schultheis says the babies should be allowed to have HIV so as to punish the mother’s actions. “This [HIV] stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part, and I just can’t go there,” he says. “We do things continually to remove the consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly. I’m not convinced that part of the role of government should be to protect individuals from the negative consequences of their actions.” Lois Tochtrop, a Democratic Senator who co-sponsored the bill, replies: “HIV does not just come from sexual promiscuity. It comes from many other things, contaminated blood for one.” Fellow Democrat Jennifer Veiga calls Schultheis’s comments “shameful.” Minority Leader Josh Penry, the leader of the Senate Republicans, says he has no intention of muzzling the members of his caucus, though he says he has reminded his colleagues “we should never lose sight of the humanity of people on the other side of an issue.” Penry accuses Senate Democrats of attempting to “gin up the outrage machine,” and says Democrats have made their share of questionable comments. The bill in question has the support of every Senate Republican except Schultheis; Penry is a co-sponsor. Schultheis’s is the only “no” vote. House member Marsha Looper is one of the few Republicans to question Schultheis’s comments, and the Senate Republican leadership’s failure to publicly criticize his remarks. “What are they doing over there?” she asks. “I find their comments inappropriate and offensive, and I question their motives.” Former Governor Bill Owens, a Republican, says he cannot understand Schultheis’s vote: “It’s extremely inconsistent for any person who is pro-life to oppose this effort to potentially save the life of a child.” For his part, Schultheis answers Democratic criticism by making further comments which many find even more offensive. “What I’m hoping is that yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,’ he says. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years… begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior. We can’t keep people from being raped. We can’t keep people from shooting each other. We can’t keep people from jumping off bridges. People drink and drive, and they crash and kill people. Poor behavior has its consequences.” [Rocky Mountain News, 2/25/2009; Denver Post, 2/26/2009]

Moderate Republican House member Mike Castle (R-DE) faces a raucous band of angry conservative protesters at one of his “health care listening tour” meetings. Castle, who is one of eight Republicans to join the Democratic majority in voting for the American Clean Energy and Security Act, is challenged by a full range of accusations and conspiracy theories, some ranging far afield from health care reform and energy policy. 'Socialized Medicine' Worse than 9/11 - Some audience members accuse Castle of supporting “socialized medicine.” One member shouts, “I don’t have the answers for how to fix the broken pieces of our health care system, but I know darn well if we let the government bring in socialized medicine, it will destroy this thing faster than the twin towers came down.” 'Cap and Trade' Tax Will Destroy Economy - One audience member shouts that the proposed “cap and trade” tax on pollutants will destroy the US economy. “Do you have any idea what that cap and trade tax thing, bill that you passed is going to do to the Suffolk County poultry industry?” the member says. “That’s how chicken houses are heated, with propane. It outputs CO2. I mean, I’m outputting CO2 right now as I speak. Trees need CO2 to make oxygen! You can’t tax that!” Global Warming a 'Hoax' - Many audience members respond with cheers and chants to expressions that global warming is a hoax. “I’m actually hopeful that this vote that you made was a vote to put you out of office,” one says to a barrage of applause and cheers. “You know, on this energy thing, I showed you, I had in my email to you numerous times there are petitions signed by 31,000 scientists that that know and have facts that CO2 emissions have nothing to do and the greenhouse effect has nothing to do with global warming. It’s all a hoax! [Applause.] First of all, I cannot for the life of me understand how you could have been one of the eight Republican traitors!” Another audience member says that global warming is “still a theory, so is Darwin’s theory of evolution! And yet we have the audacity to say global warming is accurate, it’s more than a theory? How about how cold it’s been this spring. Personal data, data shows that since 1998 average temperatures have been cooling!” 'Dead Baby Juice' Used to Create AIDS, Swine Flu - Some audience members believe that AIDS and the H1N1 “swine flu” epidemic are part of a conspiracy to kill Americans, using “dead baby juice.” “The virus was built and created in Fort Dix, a small bioweapons plant outside of Fort Dix,” one audience member asserts. “This was engineered. This thing didn’t just crop up in a cave or a swine farm. This thing was engineered, the virus. Pasteur International, one of the big vaccine companies in Chicago, has been caught sending AIDS-infected vaccines to Africa. Do you think I trust—I don’t trust you with anything. You think I’m going to trust you to put a needle full of dead baby juice and monkey kidneys? Cause that’s what this stuff is grown on, dead babies!” Obama a Kenyan - One audience members wins a round of applause by asserting that President Obama is not an American citizen. “Congressman Castle, I want to know,” she shouts. “I have a birth certificate here from the United States of America saying I’m an American citizen, with a seal on it. Signed by a doctor, with a hospital administrator’s name, my parents, the date of birth, the time, the date. I want to go back to January 20th and I want to know why are you people ignoring his birth certificate? He is not an American citizen! He is a citizen of Kenya!” Protests Organized by Conservative Lobbying Organizations - According to liberal news and advocacy site Think Progress, Castle and other moderate Republicans are facing orchestrated attacks on their energy and health care policies by conservative lobbying firms and right-wing talk show hosts. Lobbying organizations such as Americans for Prosperity (AFP—see May 29, 2009) have tarred Castle and other moderate Republicans as “cap and traitors,” joined by members of Fox News host Glenn Beck’s “9-12” organization (see March 13, 2009 and After) and exhorted by pronouncements from Beck, fellow talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the Web site Prison Planet, and others. [Think Progress, 7/21/2009]

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh tells his audience in two separate broadcasts that President Obama “wants to mandate circumcision” as part of the Democrats’ health care reform proposal. On August 24, Limbaugh says: “Not that I’m against circumcision, but it’s a family’s decision. Leave our penises alone, too, Obama!” On August 25, he says: “[I]t is President Obama who wants to mandate circumcision. We had that story yesterday; and that means if we need to save our penises from anybody, it’s Obama.” Limbaugh cites as his source a Fox News story based on an upcoming report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that may recommend circumcision for newborn boys in order to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS (the procedure can, later in life, reduce transmission of the disease from women to men). The CDC has not yet decided whether to make the recommendation. It is also considering whether to recommend circumcision for adult men who are at high risk for HIV infection. CDC spokesman Scott Bryan tells the St. Petersburg Times that any such recommendations “will be completely voluntary,” both for parents and for adult males. The St. Petersburg Times’s PolitiFact investigative team researches what involvement Obama may have had in the CDC’s potential recommendation, and finds none. “From what we found, Obama has not used the word ‘circumcision’ in any public statement as a candidate or as president,” the reporters note. “We also found no evidence that he has recommended circumcusion to the CDC. The only link—and it’s an indirect one—that we could find between Obama and the CDC’s efforts was a press release on the White House Web site announcing a series of HIV/AIDS community discussions, the first one being held in conjunction with the National HIV Prevention Conference we mentioned earlier. But the release did not mention circumcision. It turns out that circumcision recommendations have been under discussion since 2007, when George W. Bush was president. Given the fact the CDC was pondering the idea back then, it is no more accurate to say Obama wants to mandate circumcision than to say Bush did.” The Times calls Limbaugh’s assertions “ridiculous.” [St. Petersburg Times, 8/27/2009]

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